We asked to interview San Diego State offensive coordinator Bob Toledo after Saturday's defeat to Eastern Illinois, but Rocky Long wasn't in the mood to let the media talk to anyone other than himself that night.

So Tuesday was the first chance anyone got to chat with the Aztecs' OC about last weekend's offensive (pun intended) disaster.

But if you're interested enough to want to read Toledo's comments from the 10 minute interview, here's the full transcript.

Qn: Coach, what went wrong against Eastern Illinois?

Bob Toledo: It had to be obvious. First of all I think you can never over or underestimate your opponent. You shouldn’t fear your opponent but I think you’ve got to respect them and I sometimes feel like maybe we took them a little lightly – that’s an opinion of mine.

I also believe that more games are lost than won – and I don’t want to take anything away from them, but I think we lost the football game.

It was obvious that we were out of sync. When you don’t complete passes particularly in the red zone, you kick field goals. We kicked four field goals. And when you kick four field goals, you don’t win too many games.

We had way too many turnovers, we had way too many drops, we had several missed assignments. We had way too many sacks. You take away the sacks, the fumbles, the interceptions and dropped balls, and we have a heck of a football game. But when we’re out of sync, end up having to throw the ball way too much, in the two minute drill way too much. We just didn’t capitalize on opportunities. We had great field position, we just didn’t get the job done.

Qn: How do you think QB Adam Dingwell performed?

Toledo:I think the number one thing is he had a lot of pressure. I don’t think we did a good job of protecting him. We had to throw the ball too much. I think he had some drops in crucial situations. We had a penalty on third and four, we have a chance to make a first down, instead the next play is intercepted. It was just a chain of events.

As I told the offensive team you can’t point fingers, it wasn’t any one person. It was everyone. Muema getting hurt didn’t help us. We just didn’t perform very well. Didn’t protect the quarterback, didn’t block for the run, didn’t throw the ball well. We had eight drops. You just can’t do that and win football games.

You get down to the red zone, you’ve got to score touchdowns, you can’t be kicking field goals all the time.

Qn: Did you expect to pass so much?

Toledo:What happened was that it ended up, toward the end of the half, we were in the two minute, drill, got down the other end of the field, and just didn’t score. Then at the end of the game we’re behind and throwing it every down.

Yeah we threw way too many passes. I would never have dreamt that we’d throw that many passes. I was thinking something in the neighborhood of 30 passes. Try to run the ball 45 times, throw it 30 and have about 75 snaps.

We actually got the ball 106 snaps, not counting penalties, and ended up getting 99 snaps. That’s way too many for us.

Qn: How did RB Adam Muema’s injury affect the game plan?

Toledo: Well it took away from the running game, it took away from Adam making big plays. He’s a big play running back. It took some of our running game away. He tends to make offensive linemen look even better than they are because he’s such a good runner. So it hurt us a lot.

Qn: Still, it looked like that gave you a chance to play some of your young running backs such as D.J. Pumphrey, Chase Price and Dwayne Garrett. How do you think they did?

Toledo: I think it shows they all have a role to play. They all do certain things really well. I think we’ve got to utilize all of them in certain situations and they’ve proved they can play for us.

Toledo: Well I think they all have good qualities, and I’d hate to get into every one’s qualities right now, but just the freshman (Pumphrey) himself – he’s not as big and strong as he needs to be yet. I think he runs physical and he’s quick and he’s fast but I think if he continues to play 12 games and a whole lot of plays, he’s going to get worn down at the college level. He’s just not ready yet to play that many snaps. But I think in the future he’s got a bright future.

Qn: What about De'Saan Hardwick? He was the only one who didn't get into the game?

Toledo: (Running backs coach Jeff) Horton is the one who controls the substitutions for the running backs and we talked about it, and I talked to Hardwick after the game – talked to him the other day as a matter of fact. Told him to just keep competing and get on special teams and attitude and effort is important.

Qn: So is Hardwick still in mix to compete for the backup job?

Yeah. I think so.

Qn: Nico Siragusa was subbed out of the game in favor of Darrell Greene at right guard. Was Siragusa working with the ones in practice today?

Toledo: No. We’re going to look at (Zack) Dilley as a starter this week. Nico struggled a little bit and went out before the half. Greene went in and struggled too. Maybe the guy in front of them was pretty good, I don’t know.

They both struggled. But we’ve got a veteran left tackle, veteran left guard. The right tackle is playing OK, the center, for being his first time out, did OK. But the right guard position kinda stood out to us.

Qn: What was the issue for Siragusa at RG?

Toledo:Just being physically mismatched and a couple of assignment errors.

Qn: Going back to Dingwell, in his last two games, he's thrown seven picks. For an offensive coordinator, is that a red flag? Does he have the skill set he needs to be the QB to run your offense?

Toledo: Well, you know everything I’ve seen and heard is that he won a bunch of games last year going into that last game. I think the thing is that he can manage a game real well but I don’t think we need to put all the game on his shoulders. He doesn’t need to be throwing the ball as much as we did. It was one of those games where we ended up having to throw the football a lot.

And hopefully if we get in games where it’s a different situation and he doesn’t have to carry the team on his shoulders, maybe he manages the game better and the passes are completed instead of intercepted.

Qn: Colin Lockett mentioned that the wide receivers also had some miscommunication on routes? Was that part of the problem?

Editorial note: Lockett said in the Tuesday press conference that the WRs had some miscommunication on routes last Saturday.

Toledo:There was miscommunication on the routes? Well that’s news to me, I don’t know. I just know that balls were dropped. When it hits you in the hands, I don’t care what kind of routes you run, you’ve got to catch them. I don’t know to be honest with you.

Qn: You've been doing this for a long time. How do you make kids hold on to the ball?

Toledo: It’s a matter of focus and concentration. Sometimes you just lose a little bit of edge when you think you’re better than someone else and don’t have to compete as hard. We found out this week – look how many teams beat teams they shouldn’t have beat.... It happens all the time. I’ve been on both ends of the spectrum. I really believe it’s an edge, you gotta have a little bit of a fear factor. Not supposed to be afraid of your opponent but you’ve got to respect them, and you’ve got to perform.

I think it’s easy to point fingers. Everyone, coaches included, need to look at themselves and see what went wrong. And that’s what we’ve done.

Qn: When you look at Ohio State, do they have a weakness on defense?

Toledo: They’re pretty good. They’re really good .There’s a reason why they’re one of the top two teams in the country. It’s not a weakness, but their four defensive linemen are all new. Not starters. But they’re pretty good. They were recruited highly and are all great players. So that’s not a weakness. They don’t have a weakness. It’s going to be a very tough physical football game, but we’ve got to go compete.

Qn: Does that give you a slim margin of error against OSU? What do you have to do to win?

Toledo: Like I said, more games are lost than won. If you’re going to beat a team like that you’ve got to play error free football and hope that they make some mistakes and give you a chance to beat them.

Qn: Are you expecting to have Adam Muema playing on Saturday?

Toledo:He’s supposed to practice tomorrow. He claims he’ll be ready. I’m just going by what he and the trainers say.

Qn: Finally, have you always called the plays from the sideline? Why do you do that? What are the positives and negatives of doing that?

Toledo: I've done it all my life. I think, number one, you can see the emotion of the game, you can be involved with the players and make adjustments right on the field. I’m not good at going from phone down to the bottom. ...I like to be right there making decisions, I think it’s easier for me to do that on the field. I’ve been a head coach most of my career, so I’ve always been on the field – whether it’s high school, college or small college and I’ve just always been down there.

Qn: So for instance last week with Dingwell having a rough game, what do you tell him on the field?

Toledo: You just try to ask him what happened. What was he looking at? What did he see? And he was getting a lot of pressure. He was getting hit. He didn’t have a lot of time to throw the football, and most quarterbacks aren’t very good when they don’t have time to throw the football.

Qn: Do you think the noise will be a factor at Ohio Stadium on Saturday?

Toledo: Well one of the things we’re doing is the Whisper Drill. We’re real quiet. I don’t like a lot of loud noise at practice. It’s kind of distracting in my opinion. I think once we get in the game and get going, I think that goes by the wayside a little bit.

Qn: So you're not pumping crowd noise through the loudspeakers at practice like the team did to prepare for Washington last season?

Toledo:I don’t like doing that, to be honest with you. The neighbors get upset. …I’m hoarse yelling. Doesn’t do any good. We do a Whisper (Drill) where we’re really quiet, it’s a silent cadence, we don’t go real loud.